


Becoming the Mask

by matrixrefugee



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 14:42:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17920784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: Some of Eames's masks hit better than others.





	Becoming the Mask

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [any, any, fear of reality](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/112154.html?thread=5318938&format=light#cmt5318938)

There was a serious reason why Eames had gotten into dreamsharing, particularly forgery. Most people who knew him thought he did it for the thrill of the chase, the chance to slip inside a mark's most secure vault or hiding place -- their very mind -- and lift something precious without their even knowing what was happening (provided that the architect had a head on his shoulders and didn't screw up the design [see also Dom Cobb for an example of the former and Nash for the latter], and the guy running point was cool-headed under fire [see also Arthur].). His cover was that he'd taken part in a military study on the technique and since he did better work as a dreamsharer than he ever did as a grunt soldier, he decided to make a career change.

The truth was -- and it was something that he hid so well that he kept it carefully compartmentalized even from himself -- that part of him was afraid of reality. His family was dysfunctional to a degree that Weegee and Diane Arbus were more likely to have it pose for them than Norman Rockwell ever would, and he had seen some things in Afghanistan that he rather he didn't remember. Even as a kid, he had a habit of constructing elaborate fantasies to put some distance between himself and the pain of seeing his mother come home bruised from seeing a client who liked it rough when that wasn't really her specialty, or he'd come up with clever reasons why his father had disappeared when he and his older brother (half-brother, to be precise, but the fact that they shared only their mum's genetics didn't keep them apart) were kids.

Forging got him out of his own damaged skin for a while. Like a shaman, he was the perfect channel for whatever identity he was assuming, an identity often completely different from his own -- and that included Miss Red -- getting him away from the damaged young man who lurked in the shadow of the cocky bloke from Sydney, who favored ugly suits and odd colored shirts.


End file.
